FabIndia pulls down festive ad after social backlash over usage of ‘Jashn-e-Riwaaz’

The latest brand to face undefined backlash over religious sentiments is FabIndia owing to its advertisement titled ‘Jashn-e-Riwaaz’ wherein it was accused of defacing the Hindu festival.

As Twitter roared with calls for #BoycottFabIndia, the apparel brand responded by removing the advertisement from the social media platforms. The advertisement received criticism for the usage of an Urdu phrase for a significant Hindu festival and was accused of hyper-secularisation.

The Rightwing outfits allegedly started trolling the brand online after it posted a tweet promoting their latest collection for the festive season. The tweet read - “As we welcome the festival of love and light, Jashn-e-Riwaaz by FabIndia is a collection that beautifully pays homage to Indian culture," which FabIndia was later forced to remove.

Also Read: All you need to know about the Cadbury row over beef in chocolates

Soon after the tweet went live, #BoycottFabindia started trending on Twitter. It was termed as “culturally inappropriate”, by a few while many slammed it for unnecessarily uplifting secularism while plugging Urdu ideologies with a Hindu festival.

There were also a set of people who stated that using an Urdu phrase won’t make Diwali less of a festival and that it shall remain as significant and sacred as it has always been.

While there has been no official clarification put out by FabIndia during the filing of this report, an Indian Express article quoted the brand saying that its current capsule of products under the name Jashn-e-Riwaaz is a celebration of Indian traditions and that the phrase means that. It further mentioned, "The capsule is not our Diwali Collection of products. Our Diwali collection is called “Jhilmil si Diwali” is yet to be launched."

The campaign video has been taken down by FabIndia.

Last year, Tanishq's 'Ekatvam' commercial was prompted to be pulled down due to vicious trolling on social media for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.